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Heaven & Hell - The Devil You Know

posted by: David on 3 May 2009

Roadrunner

When the godfathers of the entire heavy music scene release new material, you are obliged to pay attention. Yes, I am talking about Black Sabbath here. Although they are called Heaven & Hell when they have Ronnie James Dio on vocals, to make it less confusing. Count in Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice and you have yourself a world class band.

Opening track ‘Atom And Evil’ starts off with a typical Iommi-riff and Dio comes in with his own recognizable vocal style to make you feel at home right away. Heaven & Hell’s goal was to show people they were still capable of giving them new music that measured up to what they’ve done in the past. Well, they have proven themselves once again!

In the ten songs on this new record, Heaven & Hell takes our hand and leads us into dark stories like ‘Bible Black’ and ‘Eating The Cannibals’. Musically it’s not always as dark and sinister as you would expect based on the lyrics. There’s plenty of room for melody as well, so it adds up to a nice mixture of various emotions.

You’ll notice that these new songs are not up-tempo, like ‘Mob Rules’ or ‘Neon Knights’ for example. The three new tracks on ‘Black Sabbath – The Dio Years’ already prepared us for that and these mid-tempo songs are still great, but I would have liked some more up-tempo stuff as well. During a live show they sure as hell know how to play those songs, so why not on the new studio album as well? ‘Eating The Cannibals’ and ‘Neverwhere’ are the only tracks that come close tempo-wise. Ah, well... you can’t have it all.

Actually, I shouldn’t be complaining at all, I know. Just listen to the mesmerizing riffing in ‘Rock And Roll Angel’, ‘Breaking Into Heaven’, ‘Follow The Tears’ and ‘Neverwhere’. You’ll be in Sabbath heaven before you know it. Be sure to check out the superb artwork on ‘The Devil You Know’ as well. I don’t know who made this, but it is certainly a worthy addition to the total package that these rock legends deliver.

By the way, ‘The Devil You Know’ was recorded in less than three weeks. So there’s no need for endless studio time to create a great record. Eat your heart out Metallica!

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Related bandprofile: Heaven & Hell

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Comments

Author	Message
Johan Reflections	Posted on 03.05.2009 (20:30) goto top
	perfecte recensie. En een (bijna) perfecte plaat. man,man,man... daar kunnen al die poserige myspace metal bands nog veel, heel veel van leren!
El Manco	Posted on 03.05.2009 (21:29) goto top
	Geen heaven & Hell of Mob rules evenaring... maar wel een fijne plaat...

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